Monty Harper here. I'm a songwriter, performer and recording artist with more than twenty years of professional experience. I write songs for and with kids, songs about scientific research, and songs for clients. I teach songwriting and I perform for schools, libraries, and festivals in Oklahoma and often elsewhere around the country. This blog is where you'll find photos, songs, video, and announcements related to my latest projects. Enjoy!

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

New Options on FlyingSpaghettiMusic.com

Some of you know I've been releasing new songs under the label "Flying Spaghetti Music" via the crowd-funding platform Patreon. The closest analogy I can think of is it's like a subscription service. You pledge $1 or more per song, then you automatically get each new song delivered to your inbox. Patreon charges you only when there's a new song available.

I've been experimenting with this, posting songs about once every month or two. (Below is a YouTube playlist of the songs I've released to date.)

So far I'm loving it. My Patreon patrons are supporting me for a total of $81/song right now. It's not a lot of money, but it feels great to know that I have people waiting and excited to hear the next song I record.

If I can get my total up to $350/song, I'll start to break even on my recording costs. If I can get it up to the $1500 - 2500 range, I could start shifting my main source of income from performing to recording.

Not that I want to give up performing altogether, but having the option to lean more on recording would be a dream come true for me. It would mean a more predictable and steady income, less stress, and more time for my creative work, especially writing new songs. It would also help my work reach a larger, more wide-spread audience.

Patreon allows artists to set up a rewards structure, incentivizing patrons to pledge more than the minimum. I recently polled my patrons and found out that they didn't care about most of the rewards I was offering. Their typical motivation is to help bring more of the sorts of songs I make into the world. One more reason to love Patreon!

The rewards they did care about were related to getting the music. So my new options are focused there.

Patreon suggests that $1, $3, and $5 are the most common pledge amounts. So I wanted to make the $5 level a no-brainer.

For $3/song, I offer a download package with the new song plus some extras. For $5/song I'm throwing in a CD download of your choice from my back catalog. That's $5 for a new song, bonus material, and an entire CD. I think it's a great deal. We'll see if I get any takers!

I'd love to have you on board! You'd probably buy my music anyway at some point, right? :-)